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Solar Heating and Cooling Programme

This statement was released by the International Energy Association (IEA). The IEA’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme and major solar thermal trade associations released these new statistics in GWth, rather than square meters. They state this as the reason for the underestimation of the solar thermal capacity. By using square meters of collector area, you’re not using a unit comparable with any other energy sources.

This report has been written by Werner Weiss and Franz Mauthner in contribution to the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (SHC). It documents the solar thermal capacity installed in 55 countries, and ascertains the contribution of solar thermal systems to the supply of energy and the CO¬2 emissions avoided as a result of operating these systems.

During the revision of the Energy Star specifications, solar water heaters were in danger of losing the label because of their long financial payback times (see http://www.solarthermalworld.org/node/3217). The third draft of the revised requirements, which was published on 19 March, has now put an end to the uncertainty: the EPA has included solar water heaters even in its most recent document. A relief for all solar thermal producers – albeit they still criticise the high solar share required.

This position paper is a deliverable of the Task 38 “Solar Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration” of the IEA Solar Heating & Cooling Programme. It describes the application of active solar heating and cooling technologies within the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system of buildings in the context of increasing energy efficiency requirements.

In policy lobbying even a single sentence included in a bill is, in some cases, already a huge success. This is exactly the case for the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill that has recently passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives. “The Committee supports ongoing Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) research and development activities within the Building Technologies Program”, is the key sentence in the report that accompanies the bill.

“A coordinated effort is needed to develop the solar thermal market in North America,” Lucio Mesquita, Head of Thermosol Consulting in Canada, said during his presentation about “Solar Cooling in North America” at the Intersolar North America in San Francisco in July. Photo: Thermosol Consulting

The international harmonisation of norms is advancing: On behalf of operating agent Jan Erik Nielsen from Plan Energi, experts are working on the alignment of EN and ISO norms under Task 43 of the Solar Heating & Cooling Programme managed by the International Energy Agency.
Photo: ITW

Solar thermal professionals from all over the world will once again gather in Munich, Germany, to attend the international solar trade fair Intersolar 2010, which has just recently been renamed to Intersolar Europe. Its German organizer, the Solar Promotion GmbH, announced record-breaking registration figures of 1,700 exhibitors and 60,000 visitors.

At the request of the US Solar Rating & Certification Corporation (SRCC), the International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (SHC) formed Task 43, the “Solar Rating and Certification Procedure”.
Photo: IEA SHC